Oases and Kisses and Screams
by Sternenlicht
Summary: It’s been a year, she thinks, and the thought tries to reach out to cross the distance that time has imposed on them..... Obidala. AU. Short while after TPM.


A/N: Well, new story again. Seems as if Obi-Wan doesn't want to leave my mind… not that I want him to! No, never! Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please leave something nice to read for me when you are finished! Thanks.

Disclaimer: Still I don't own anything. Damn. I thought my lawyer would've been finished by now, but seems as if George L. is a difficult business partner….

_Oases and Kisses and Screams_

It's been a year, she thinks, and the thought tries to reach out to cross the distance that time has imposed on them. Time, however, cannot be conquered, and so it remains a thought. Nothing more.

She is watching the tall green trees in her garden, the lush richness of nature so abundant before her. Bees are clustering around the blossoming flowers, flowers of all colors imaginable. Purple, red, yellow, orange, pink so bright that they might almost hurt her eyes as she is not used to that vividness. Hardly ever has she seen her garden in full bloom before. Birds are chirping, the little ones hiding within the bushes, beneath the huge leaves of plants whose names she has never known.

The small pond lies undisturbed beneath the stifling heat of midday, and no wind caresses its surface. From time to time the water ripples softly when a fish wants to take a look at the royal garden, but otherwise there is nothing.

It is quiet there and nothing disturbs the lonely figure that watches all that belongs to her, but which she has hardly ever seen before. She is small, the one who is standing at the marble balustrade surrounding the terrace, and the heavy burden on her shoulders and her heavy dresses make her seem even smaller, although her hair is neatly arranged to lend her height. Her face, still young, is worn with care, and her eyes do not in the least resemble the brilliance of her garden. Almost they seem glazed if not for the sparkle that memory is so kind to grant her.

Her guards and her handmaidens have withdrawn into the gentle coolness of the palace because it is too hot out here to stay long, and because she has sent them away. She cannot be alone often, has never been and so she is almost unaccustomed to the solace she's been given. No one will disturb her, at her request, as she has woken this morning with the burning feeling that today she must walk in memory.

It is not often that she hears him nowadays. For humans a year is a long time, and if she is honest there has never been much to remember in the beginning. They have not been given an abundant land that the mind can wander when one of them is no longer. All they have is a barren desert with a few oases that sparkle ever the brighter because there is nothing that might draw away the onlooker's attention.

One of these oases she dreaded in the beginning. She shrunk away from his voice whenever it had chosen to appear, but with the seasons passing she has gotten used to it, and now she is not sure if she ever wants to get rid of that scream that has visited her so often in the nights and the few quiet moment she has had that year.

She does not hear it now, and she is sorry for that because it has been a year, and the year has been sad. There is only a faint remembrance that tingles her eardrums, but it is not his voice. Almost, she thinks, she feels as if she were waiting for it, missing it, although that would be strange. She chooses to dismiss that thought. It cannot be.

How can you miss a scream that always, always makes you want to run?

Impossible. Instead she redirects her attention to her garden, to the buzzing bees, the chirping birds, that pond that she wanted to swim in with him. Despite the sound of nature, it is quiet. She longs to hear something – footsteps on the grass, maybe. The soft tread of leather-clad feet that are accustomed to moving quietly. Almost she can hear that. But no, she has never heard that sound before, so she cannot hear it now. Imagination is such a strange thing.

She sighs deeply and moves a little, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The sun is now directly in her face, warming her to the core. She has been cold for such a long time now that she can hardly remember a time when that was different. Well, it's been winter, she thinks. And before that it was fall and summer and spring. In spring she had been warm, and part of the summer too. She smiles at herself, a somewhat sad smile, and leaves the terrace, walking on the pebbled path that winds its way through her garden.

Quite slowly, she feels peace beginning to seep into her weary body, the trees and the flowers embracing her, warming her. The wind that has been creeping over the hills has come to her garden, and she is reminded of the gentleness of his voice. She lets herself be guided by the whispers in the air, and forgetting that she is a queen, sinks down beside the pond, the grass tickling her feet and legs.

She closes her eyes, and her mind walks away, far away, and when it returns, he is back as well

A gentle smile that plays around fine lips. Blue eyes that sparkle with the Naboo sun. Soft hands that have touched her so seldom. A strong body that sings with life, and is older than her, but still much to young for all that has happened.

Two oases are in the desert of her memory, and one of them is small and would be insignificant if she had not fallen in love with him. She does not want to remember the battle and all the sorrow that has come with it, and so she only thinks of the few moments they have seen each other. The street. The palace. The celebration afterwards.

She had lost her heart in the street, when she had first laid her eyes upon him. He who had defended her so graciously and smiled so wonderfully, and had hardly regarded her.

Then his master had died, and her heart had died with him because she thought she had lost her love forever. He had left Naboo, and why should he ever return to the planet where the flames had consumed somebody who had been so dear to his heart?

But he had come back, and that is her second oasis, and it is bright and full of love. Two years it had taken him to return, and when he stood in front of her throne, asking if he could stay for some time, she had not been able to believe her eyes. Her 'yes' had been stuttering, and the twinkle in his eyes told her that he had understood.

His duties had given them two months, and they were young and carefree and walked the garden paths in the mornings, in the evenings and throughout the days. Their laughter had rung throughout the palace, and she knew that her people rejoiced because there was someone who made their queen happy.

So very often he had held her while lying at the same pond with the same fish in it and with the same trees hiding them from all watchful eyes. They had kissed and held each other but they had not hurried because there was still so much time left. He was young and she was young, and the universe was small.

She feels the warmth of his arms, and the warmth of his smile, and she stretches in the grass until she realizes that there is only the day's heat and the wind that is stirring her hair. There is no one next to her and no one holds her and no one whispers that he loves her.

He is gone. He had left her after the two months, had promised to return as soon as possible, but there are no further oases of memory. The next thing is not a memory, because she has never experienced it, and about that she is glad.

It is his voice that comes to her in the dead of the night, and it screams, it screams her name, and it is the moment of his death. It pierces the darkness, the quietness and solitude, and nothing can block it out, and she does not even wish to.

It is cruel and she does not want to be reminded of that dreadful night when the tall black man came and told her of his final fight, but how can she ever forget it, though she has never heard it and does not even know whether it ever existed – once, a long year ago, the time of a heartbeat.

She cries. The tears drop onto her elegant dress, in the grass, and onto the flowers. She is torn between getting up and running, and curling into a ball and dying there where she was happy – once, a long year ago, for two months.

She wishes that the scream would leave her, that all the happy memories would vanish, but she is sure that this will not happen, and it kills her to know that she will have to live with them for weeks, and months, and years because her fate is not like his, and she will not die in the spring of her life, and he has died and he will never come back.

Why did he scream? Why did he burden her with such a memory? And then she remembers that she does not even know how he died, and what his last words were, and where he died. Her tears leave her drained and weak, and she is not sure about whether she can ever get up again.

The black man told her that she could come and visit the ever-living candles that remind of him, the name-plate and all those things the Jedi did to not forget the ones who are no more. She might bring flowers, he had said, and see how he lived and what he has left.

A year has passed and she has not yet gone.

She will, though.

When she is old, and wrinkled, and no longer queen. Then she will bring flowers and see what he has left to the world he has abandoned, and how he lived when he was young. And then she will cry before the candles and kneel there for a long time, although her joints will hurt, and she hopes she will die there because she has always wanted to be with him when her time has come.

_A/N: Enjoyed it? Please leave a review. Thanks a lot! (You know, I'll starve if I don't get any, 'cause reviews are my daily breakfast! g)_


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